The Pitch: How Curry Favour is adding a fresh twist to a meal-time favourite
THEY’RE full of preservatives, refined sugar and ingredients you can’t pronounce — and inevitably, you’ll never use the whole jar. But not any more. An Aussie entrepreneur has given curry pastes a fresh new twist.
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In the Herald Sun’s ongoing series on creative Victorian entrepreneurs, The Pitch, our experts give their verdict on a curry paste business with a fresh twist.
THE PITCH ...
A DECADE after moving out of the family home, Bridget Francis has shifted back in to give her fledging small business the best chance of succeeding.
She admits her Curry Favour food venture is not currying any favour with her parents.
“There are boxes everywhere,” Ms Francis says.
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Ms Francis has worked as a chef in Melbourne for the past eight years, cooking at the likes of high-profile restaurants Huxtable, The Town Mouse, Zumbo and Our Kitchenette.
It was while making curry pastes at Huxtable that the idea of starting her curry paste business was sparked.
“From the age of 10 to 15, I lived in South East Asia with my family,” Ms Francis says.
“On the weekends, I would go to the markets with my friends to buy CDs and I remember seeing all of the fresh food on display.”
She says making curry pastes reminds her of her time in Asia.
Looking for a change from the grinding hours of being a chef, she set about developing her fresh Thai curry paste sachets.
She felt the existing curry paste offerings in supermarkets lacked flavour, and noted they were full of preservatives, oils, refined sugar and ingredients she couldn’t pronounce.
“You also had to buy a whole jar of it,” Ms Francis says.
No one, she laments, ever finishes the whole jar.
This informed her decision to create a single-use, fresh Thai curry paste.
In her home kitchen, she developed three products suited to a variety of tastes.
A mild yellow curry is family friendly. There are also medium green and hotter red pastes.
While they are locally made, she does import some spices but adds fresh Australian ingredients including chillies, lemongrass, Kaffir lime, galangal, garlic, red onion and turmeric.
Her products do not include shrimp paste, making them suitable for vegans, vegetarians and people with crustacean allergies.
As the pastes are fresh, they are stocked in the chilled sections. They last three months in the fridge and a year in the freezer.
As a chef, Ms Francis has been able to add value by devising recipes using the pastes for buyers to try.
These include curries, marinades, slow-cooked dishes, salad dressings and stirfries.
Ms Francis says she started making the pastes for friends and family and when they were well received, she launched at a market.
She borrowed a marquee, trestle and displays from a friend.
“I thought I would sell 15 packets but I sold 70,” she says of her first outing at St Kilda Primary School.
She continues to sell them at markets in Flemington, Elwood and Canberra and on Wednesdays joins a farmers market at the University of Melbourne, where she sells curry and rice to students and staff.
“Once people try it they buy it so it is important for me to attend markets where there is an opportunity for sampling,” she says.
Ms Francis says the markets not only provide a testing ground but allow her to engage with customers who are interested in the business and background story.
“People want to know the traceability and provenance. They want to know who is making their food and where it comes from,” she says.
Ms Francis has moved from making the pastes in a home kitchen to using a commercial kitchen.
She does not sell online, but if people contact her she is happy to post her products.
She is also door-knocking independent supermarkets and foodstores to stock her pastes and has revamped the packaging.
The response so far has been positive and she hopes to be stocked at some independent grocers by Christmas.
Ms Francis says that at this stage, she reinvests her earnings in the business.
She has just completed the Monash University Rocketseeder project, which helped her hone her business skills.
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY …
John Downs, business coach, Acorro
WELL done Bridget! It was lovely to meet you among the artisan bakers, growers and shepherds at the Preston Farmers Market.
It’s great to meet an entrepreneur who is doing the work on her business having thought about a plan, done a start-up accelerator program, has a mentor, and has a quarterly accountability and advisory board in place.
I have two questions for you. Firstly, how will you increase sales? The key here is understanding that your customers are retailers rather than consumers.
They have to maximise return per linear metre of shelf and fridge space by making it easy for consumers to find and buy each product.
As competitor products are jars in the Asian foods aisle, I’d be asking someone such as Amy Monet, Kitchen Manager at Scicluna’s fine grocery stores.
She might be able to shed light on how they introduced, position and sell their own-made cauliflower rice and zucchini noodles between yoghurts and sliced fruit packs. They constantly add new artisan foods and ingredients to their range.
Secondly, are you prepared to be the face of the product? Consider using social video on your website, Insta and Facebook pages to capture your essence, passion and bring your recipes to life.
I wish you the Acorro three: pleasure, fulfilment and to earn a just financial reward from your passion for bringing the freshest of curry flavours to the table.
Vivian Vo, program manager, Melbourne Innovation Centre
CURRY Favour’s strong value proposition paired with its vibrant and sleek identity creates a great start to a memorable brand.
Growing a food start-up by reaching the mass market can be tricky — but reaching a niche market is ideal where the best products will always respond to an existing problem.
When it comes to your customers, the more information you gather, the more tailored and effective your marketing efforts will be.
I love the vibrant visuals on the website, the storytelling piece and the recipes that further strengthen Curry Favour’s branding.
Your website will be your biggest online asset and will likely require its own strategy. Preferably, your website should prompt your customers to perform an action: in the absence of an online store, consider integrating pop-ups prompting the visitor to sign-up to a newsletter, fill in an online form, or take up a promotional offer.
Make great use of visuals and hashtags throughout your social platforms. These channels are especially good at matching up people and brands according to interest and will help you reach your target customers more quickly.
Social insights and analytics are generated daily and provide a constant stream of data.
Use this data to learn more about your customers and leverage social media for a better growth strategy.
Bruce Hall, mentor, Small Business Mentoring Service
THROUGH her work as a chef and love of Asia, Bridget has tapped into a rich vein of opportunity with Curry Favour.
When it comes to food, Australia has undergone a remarkable transition over the past few decades. We have internationalised.
The Google Keyword Planner confirms this trend with massive search volumes each month in Australia for topics related to curry and curry recipes.
To take advantage of the opportunity and build awareness, I would like to see Bridget add a blog to her website. Use it as a platform to share her experience as a chef and educate potential customers about the joys of curry.
Education is a low-cost and powerful way to attract new customers and create loyal raving fans (a business that does this well is the Australian arm of Weber BBQs).
However, to work it is important pages and posts on the website are optimised for search. That is, they are built around phrases potential customers use when searching for information on the web.
For example, the current page home page title is “The Story”, which no one is likely to use.
A better title may be “Traditional Curry Paste | Amazing Flavour | No preservatives!”.
The free Yoast SEO tool, which is attached to the website, can be used to help get this right. It is easy to use and powerful in the guidance it provides.
As a lover of curry, I can’t wait to taste what Curry Favour has to offer!
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